Once you’ve sanded and cleaned your wood you are ready to stain. I cleaned mine with soap and water and then went over the piece with a tack cloth. They’re THE best! You can also get some really great cleaner at the Hardware store but for the life of me I can’t remember what it’s called and my googling has yielded no name! I used the Minwax Dark Walnut color and it’s gorgeous. I stained it twice and it was perfect. I had some issues with my polyurithane (last step) and had to re-sand and re-stain. Yeah it was a total bummer. I re-stained four times to get everything even again. And yes I was cursing. A lot. In the end my table top is a little darker than I would have liked but it’s still really pretty. Twice was perfect. Another color I really love is Simply Walnut. Either of those walnut stains and you’re good to go.
Stain is awesome. It took about five minutes to stain the entire top. You brush it on with a foam brush and you let it sit for like… no minutes. As soon as I was done staining I started taking it off. I got an old T-shirt and ripped it up into a few rags. You are going to start on the end you started your stain and just wipe the stain off. Once the entire table has been wiped clean, take another rag and just go over it one more time making sure there is no stain left to dry on the top.
You’ll need to let it sit over night and apply your second coat of stain the next day. In the meantime though start working on your chairs. I roughed them up, washed them and primed them. Once they are primed you need to re-sand with a 220 grit sand paper and use your tack cloths to get all the dust off the chair. Tack cloths are awesome- I highly recommend them. Once they are primed and cleaned, you can spray them with your heirloom white or whatever color you have chosen. I applied two coats of my heirloom white and each time in between I sanded with a 220 grit sandpaper and cleaned. The last step on the chairs is to either spray or brush with polyurethane. Totally necessary in my opinion. It will help the chairs hold up and make them super strong. I brushed the poly on.
Next you are going to take a few trash cans and cover your freshly stained table top. I just taped the trash bags on and took it outside. Make sure you’ve sanded and cleaned up the legs. Prime. Sand with 220 grit, clean with your track cloths and spray with your heirloom white. Two coats. You need to sand and clean between coats. Just lightly. To get the dust off and stuff. Then you’re going to either spray or brush on your polyurethane. I brushed. I plan on this getting heavy use and I wanted to make my paint super strong.
TIP- The polyurethane changes the color of the paint just a tiny bit. Ask to see a sample of it at your local hardware store. It made my heirloom white look a little yellow. Which bummed me out. But I don’t think I had another choice. If you don’t plan on using your table and chairs a whole bunch just lightly spray a few coats of the polyurethane on and it should be good. You will feel such a huge difference when you’ve applied the polyurethane. It’s awesome!
When you say clean with soap and water…did you just use dish soap and water? And did you have to rinse it off after cleaning it or did you just wipe it off with the tack cloth?
Totally worth it. This turned out awesome!
I’m still trying to convince my husband to like this style….he thinks the white chairs would get dirty too fast! Someday I’ll be able to convince me 🙂
I have this same table and am totally doing this! Just gotta convince my husband. 🙂
This looks great!!!!
This looks awesome! We are moving to a cozy (IE tiny) apartment in GA in a few weeks and won’t be able to take everything with us. A kitchen table is definitely something we are going to have to hunt down at a yard sale and redo! Thanks for posting this!